Echuca wharf visit

[Peter Webster]

A little late maybe but better late than never. Last year on a trip to Echuca for the weekend I took a range of photos at the wharf with a main emphasis on the PS Alexander Arbuthnot. I have attached these photos for anyones use and have also included part of our groups fleet of paddlers.

[Roderick Smith]

I was researching a bridge topic this week, and consulted the booklet 'Railways of Echuca', prepared in 1964 for the railway centenary, and reprinted in 1969.  It was published by Australian Railway Historical Society, Victorian Division, and drew on research from ten authors.  This river section may overlap other resources, or may reveal fresh knowledge.

The enlosed photo was not credited in the booklet.  It is an 1870s photo, and shows VR steam loco P9 on the wharf, with PS Corrong in front of a few others (which are faint in the original and in the scan).

I have added this post to part 1 of a two-part posting about Echuca wharf.  You may have to use the search button to find the other.

Regards,
Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

THE WHARF LINE
The first steam boat had arrived at Echuca in 1853 from South Australia and by the time the railway had arrived the river traffic was well established. The extent of the operations of these vessels was prodigious.  To secure loadings for their craft the skippers were prepared to take their loads up the Darling River as far as Walgett near the Queensland border. They also penetrated the Murrumbidgee as far as Wagga, the Murray to Albury, the Goulburn to Seymour, the Edward for about 230 km above Wakool Junction and the Wakool to 65 km above its junction with the Murray.  The actual limit of operations at any one time was governed by the river flow.  At flood time their scope was greatly extended but a falling river would catch an over-adventurous skipper, and leave him and his vessel marooned in some out-back waterhole until the spring rains came and released them.  At one time there were more than 250 steamers and 750 barges at work on the rivers; for a time most of the cargoes collected from the riverside settlements passed over the wharf at Echuca.  Part of the railway construction works included a line to the wharf which is about 1.5 km long.  It leads off the main line at the north end of Echuca station, from where it curves to the west to follow The Esplanade and along the river to the wharf.  The wharf line has been described at times as a tramway or siding, but it appears to have been built to railway standards. All classes of locomotive permitted to run to Echuca have been allowed on it and it was fenced from the start.  The wharf itself was owned and controlled by the government, which placed its management in the hands of the railways department. The original section was built under contract by I Dwyer & Co.  The date of the contract was 29.8.1865; the work was completed in 1867.  It was enlarged and improved in 1877 and again in 1884 by which time it had a total length of 322 m. The height of the deck was 13 m above the river bank and on the decking were two large sheds and eight hydraulically-operated cranes. It was served by a comprehensive system of railway sidings.  At one time 30 men were employed on the wharf and, in terms of tonnage of cargo handled, Echuca became Victoria's second greatest port. The greatest year was 1872 during which 240 boats and their attendant barges were cleared from the wharf.  All this business was not done without difficulty.  The railway department came into a considerable amount of criticism for delays in the turn round of the vessels. At one time there were 40 steamers and barges clamouring to be unloaded and there was a constant shortage of wagons. There were also complaints that when the river was flooded, and before the iron bridge was built, the steamers operating a ferry service in lieu of the inoperative pontoon bridge and punts had to wait their turn at the wharf with the vessels engaged on the river trade.  However the position of the railway officer in charge of the wharf could not have been enviable. In addition to a chronic  shortage of wagons there were other troubles to contend with. Goods arriving by rail consigned for shipment on a particular steamer often arrived in more than one wagon and, conversely, a steamer would unload a cargo of goods consigned to a wide variety of destinations requiring careful sorting and loading.  To add to all these worries were the customs officials, who in the course of their duties would impede, delay and annoy until they could establish if duty was payable.  Without the  railway at Echuca it is doubtful if the river traffic would ever have reached the extent of the operations that it did. Yet, ironically, it was the railway which caused its decline and final extinction.  In Sept.1878 the South Australian government opened a railway line from Adelaide to Morgan on the Murray River and this had the effect of capturing most of the Darling River trade from Echuca. The opening by the NSW government of the railway to Hay in 1882, together with the offer of special freight concessions to goods railed to and from Sydney, also affected the traffic.  Extensions to the Victorian Railways network to the Murray River towns of Swan Hill (1890) and Mildura (1903) further contributed to the decline of the river traffic to Echuca.  The decline in the river traffic was both gradual and definite.  During the 1870s, the average number of boats cleared from the wharf in any one year was 196, and during the 1880s it had dropped to 145. By the turn of the century the figure had dropped to 76.  But the traffic persisted though it became more spasmodic. Wool was still being unloaded from steamers in the 1920s.  Nov.1924 Victorian Railways Magazine reported that a large staff of stevedores were engaged on the wharf. In the following year extensive renewals to the wharf were carried out and in Aug.1925 heavy outward loadings were reported. River traffic was described as brisk, and on one day seven steamers were reported to be discharging cargoes.  In 1926, the steamers brought in 28 289 bales of wool, 20 000 tons of merchandise and 124 467 cases of fruit. This latter day traffic however was sporadic as a number of times during the 1920s VR Weekly Notice announced that the wharf had been closed.  The beginning of the end came with the completion of the Balranald line on 26.3.1926, as in the end steamer traffic had been virtually confined to the Murrumbidgee and Wakool rivers.  In 1936, the last wool consignment was passed over the wharf into railway wagons.  Wharf activity emerged again during the late war when Forests Commission of Victoria and the army used river boats to obtain much-needed firewood.  Portion of the wharf was reconditioned in 1942. and it was only the firewood traffic which prevented the whole of the wharf being demolished in 1944. As it was, four-fifths were removed for the lumber.  Red-gum logs became the final commodity to use the Murray as a means of transport, the logs being towed down the river from Barmah Forest to sawmills at Echuca.  From these mills have come literally millions of red-gum sleepers which have been used by VR throughout the state.  The wharf line still exists and the extent is shown in the plan illustrated. The small platform, known as Civic, was erected in 1954 to allow HM Queen Elizabeth II and HRH Duke of Edinburgh tp alight from the royal train when they vislted Echuca as part of their tour.  The sidings at this point were in place at the time.  At the wharf the passenger platform remains, and is used by students attending Echuca schools, who come daily on the railmotor from Kyabram.  Beyond the platform is a sawmill which still loads trucks of red gum.  Of the wharf itself, only a small portion remains. The sheds and the cranes have disappeared and the small section of track in the saw mill is the only remnant of the sidings which once served this busy terminal.
[The line was dismantled; the railmotor was cut back to Echuca station, then replaced with buses.  The line has been rebuilt, but has been used by only two tour trains, a victim of officious paperwork by the authorities responsible for approving special-train operation].

[Roderick Smith]

Here is my first visit to Echuca wharf.
This is a family-group photo on the wharf on Thurs.6.9.62, taken by my father (who doesn't appear, no autotimer on a tripod that time).  I am the 13 yo with the brown jumper, which makes the photo more relevant with Echuca wharf history than with the 'Introduce yourself' topic.  My next-younger brother in blue is now the owner of the farm where I keep Jessie II between cruises.
In that era, Echuca had not been reinvented as a historic tourist attraction.  The wharf was fending for itself: deteriorating, but not decrepit.  At least there was the interpretive sign.
This week had been the first of my life in close contact with Murray River.  In 1956, I had crossed it at Albury in a train bound for Queensland (in darkness), also in the early morning coming back again.  In 1958 I had crossed in a train bound for Adelaide (in daylight), also in darkness coming back again.  On this 1962 holiday, we had hired a caravan, gone to Swan Hill (no paddleboats there at all), then to Echuca.  IIRC the photo of PS Adelaide, taken on this day, has been posted somewhere in APAM.  It was still in the water then, with the whole park interlude yet to happen.

It was not my first paddleboat experience: in 1961 I had cruised aboard PV 'Golden City' operating on Lake Wendouree (Ballarat), not yet having left for Caribbean Gardens (Melbourne).  Earlier in the day we had been on the lake in a pedalo.  I had been reading of paddleboats amongst other technical-hobby reading (covering Brunel's PS 'Great Western' and Parsons's 'Turbinia' amongst other important learning).

Regards,
Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[Roderick Smith]

This visit was made when I was the teacher in charge (as a 26 yo) of a form 4 / year 10 (15-16 yo) group on a holiday safari from Melbourne to Lightning Ridge (NSW).  This is on the last day, at Echuca.  The group was about to embark on a cruise on PV Canberra.  I am on the left of the view, crouching.  Fri.14.5.76.
This has been scanned from a contact print.  I will try to scan the views of Canberra from the negatives.

Regards,
Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor